Stories from The Weekly Brief tagged with any of this chapter's themes,
most recent first. Each new issue's tagged stories appear here automatically.
Issue 001 · May 10, 2026
Wisconsin's tribal nations and commercial gambling interests are at odds over a state legislative proposal to legalize online sports betting, with tribes arguing the bill would undercut the exclusivity provisions in their gaming compacts. WPR has been tracking this story, which sits at the intersection of sovereignty, economic development, and the state's long-standing compact relationships with tribal governments. The compacts were hard-won; any erosion of exclusivity has real fiscal consequences for nations whose governmental programs depend on gaming revenue.
Background
· 2024
· forest-county-potawatomi
Since its founding in 1999, the Forest County Potawatomi Foundation has contributed more than $30 million to charitable organizations across Forest County and the five-county Milwaukee region. The Foundation funds art and culture, civic affairs, community development, after-school programs, senior services, and environment, with targeted attention to low-income communities in Milwaukee. It operates from offices on West Kilbourn Avenue alongside the Potawatomi Hotel and Casino.
Background
· 2024
· wikipedia
The Potawatomi Casino Hotel, operated by the Forest County Potawatomi Community, has tripled in size since its first Milwaukee expansion in 2000. A $240 million expansion in 2008 tripled the gaming floor and added a 1,700-space parking garage; a 19-story hotel opened in 2014; and a $190 million renovation of the first two levels recently added new restaurants and a sportsbook. The build-out has anchored the tribe's economic diversification across Milwaukee real estate and renewable energy.
Background
· 2023
· wxpr
In November 2023 the Forest County Potawatomi Community opened a newly remodeled Health and Wellness Center in Crandon, funded in part by a $4.7 million state Healthcare Infrastructure grant. The renovation added a lobby and registration area, a triage room, additional medical exam rooms, and a drive-thru pharmacy. The facility offers medical, behavioral health, dental, optometry, laboratory, radiology, pharmacy, and weekend walk-in services, anchoring tribal health infrastructure for the post-pandemic decade.
Background
· 2023
· potawatomi-trail-of-death-association
The Potawatomi Trail of Death of 1838, the forced removal of 859 Potawatomi from Indiana to Kansas during which more than 40 people, mostly children, died, has been commemorated by a Potawatomi-led caravan retracing the 660-mile route every five years since 1988. Eighty historical markers placed by Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H clubs, and Potawatomi families now mark campsites every 15 to 20 miles across 26 counties in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas. Wisconsin Potawatomi descendants participate annually.
Background
· 2023
· forest-county-potawatomi
Tribal estimates put the number of native Potawatomi (Bodéwadmimwen) speakers at seven. The Forest County Potawatomi Language and Culture Department teaches rotating community classes in Carter, Wabeno, Blackwell, Crandon, and Stone Lake, anchored by elder-led seasonal ceremony and traditional practice. The community has leaned on the broader Potawatomi diaspora, with shared curriculum work between Wisconsin's Forest County community and the Pokagon and Citizen Potawatomi nations.
Background
· 2023
· wisconsin-state-farmer
Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan, the 126-acre Forest County Potawatomi farm near Laona, was established in 2017 to produce a natural and sustainable source of vegetables, fruits, greens, fish, and animal proteins for tribal members. The operation includes aquaponic greenhouses by Ceres (with a second expanded greenhouse online in August 2025) as well as cattle, chicken, tilapia, bison, honey, and maple syrup, all produced without chemical fertilizer or pesticides. A $200,000 USDA grant supports food-box distribution to tribal members beyond elders.
Background
· 2022
· sunvest
During its Milwaukee casino expansions, the Forest County Potawatomi installed heat-recovery wheels that channel warm air back into the heating system, digital energy monitoring, no-water urinals, low-flow fixtures, and skylighting. The tribe has gone on to anchor multiple solar projects across its Forest County properties through SunVest and the Department of Energy's Office of Indian Energy.
Background
· 2018
· forest-county-potawatomi
Ned Daniels Jr. won the Forest County Potawatomi chairmanship in the 2017-2018 election, succeeding longtime chairman Harold 'Gus' Frank. As chair, Daniels works with the five-person Executive Council on tribal administration and external agreements. The Daniels era has overseen the Health and Wellness Center renovation, the launch of the Bodwéwadmi Ktëgan farm, the expansion of tribal solar through the Office of Indian Energy, and continued strategic investment in Milwaukee real estate alongside the Potawatomi Casino Hotel.
Background
· 2015
· indian-community-school
The Indian Community School, born from the 1971 AIM takeover of the abandoned McKinley Coast Guard Station on Milwaukee's lakefront, moved in 2007 to a $35 million, 178-acre campus in Franklin, about thirteen miles from downtown. The Forest County Potawatomi's twenty-year lease and the gaming revenue that followed funded the move and helped sustain the school. ICS serves about 364 Native students K-8, and every kindergartner commits to daily language instruction in Oneida, Menominee, or Ojibwe — a quiet but radical bet on the next generation.
Background
· 2014
· wisconsin-academy
Patty followed Indian Nations of Wisconsin with Native People of Wisconsin (2003), a social studies text for younger readers, and Seventh Generation Earth Ethics (2014), profiles of twelve Indigenous Wisconsin stewards including Joe Rose, Dot Davids, and Walter Bresette, which won the Midwest Book Award for Culture. Her PBS documentary Way of the Warrior aired nationally in 2007 and 2011, drawing on her grandfather Edward DeNomie's WWI service with the 32nd Red Arrow Division. The decade between INW editions produced the body of work the third edition now sits alongside.
Background
· 2003
· itep
In a closing chapter of the long Crandon Mine fight, the Forest County Potawatomi Community partnered with the Sokaogon Chippewa Community to purchase the proposed mine site from Nicolet Minerals, ending decades of threat to the wild rice waters between Mole Lake and the Wolf River headwaters. The tribes hold the land in trust. Walter Bresette's organizing coalition, the Midwest Treaty Network, had built much of the resistance that made the buyout possible.